Presidential candidates do it. So do U.S. House candidates. And officials from practically all California state offices, from the governor on down.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
But despite no fewer than four efforts to compel them in recent years, U.S. Senate candidates and sitting members still have not required themselves to file their campaign finance reports electronically – the most high-profile holdouts in a years-long fight to modernize campaign disclosure nationwide.
As part of Sunshine Week, organizations like the Center for Responsive Politics are again encouraging voters to call their Senators in support of a bill proposed last year by Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, which would require the Senate to adopt an e-filing requirement.
California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, have signed on as co-sponsors.
Whether the bill passes or not, candidates are still required to file their campaign donations publicly. The filings are then entered into a database by the Federal Elections Commission, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars each year.
The data entry process means that unlike filings from presidential, House and even California state candidates, information on Senate candidates is not available in database form until sometimes a month after the reports are due.
Paper reports lack the search-and-sort capabilities of a database, which means journalists, voters, campaign operatives and nonprofit organizations like MAPLight and the Center for Responsive Politics are often weeks behind the curve when it comes to parsing the influence of money in senatorial politics.
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